To family, home where Arias killed not a crime scene

Apr. 30, 2013
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Prosecutor Juan Martinez asks Jodi Arias about a photo she took of Travis Alexander in the shower, moments before she shot him, stabbed him and slit his throat on Feb. 28, 2013. The photo was the focus of a hearing on April 15, 2013. / Tom Tingle, The Arizona Republic

by Maria Polletta, The Arizona Republic

by Maria Polletta, The Arizona Republic

Nestled among a neat row of sandstone-colored houses on a quiet street, the spacious two-story was big enough for their three boys, close enough to schools and cheap enough for their budget.

The interior wasn't in the best shape, granted, but that wasn't going to deter them after the long string of vandalized foreclosures they'd visited.

They put in an offer. The seller accepted. And then, they got the call.

"Can you go into another room away from your kids? You guys need to sit down," their real-estate agent said. "There was a tragedy in the home you had the offer accepted on."

In 2008, a little more than a year earlier, Jodi Arias killed her former boyfriend, the home's previous owner, in one of the bathrooms. After an on-again, off-again relationship whose torrid details emerged only after the body was found, Arias stabbed Travis Alexander almost 30 times, slit his throat and shot him in the head, later claiming self-defense.

"People pass away in their homes all the time, but as far as something this horrific, it's very uncommon," said Sue Henstein, the real-estate agent who sold the foreclosure home. "It must happen, but I've never come across it, and if I ever mention it to another Realtor, they never have, either."

After the call with Henstein, "I Googled the address, and the first thing that came up was that (June 2009) '48 Hours' episode," the home's new owner said.

The Arizona Republic is withholding the new owners' names to protect their children, who have yet to grasp the full details of the case, according to the woman.

"I was a little nervous about it. My husband, though, it didn't bother him. He said, 'This is a good deal. It's a beautiful home. It's in a great school district,' " she said. "When we signed the papers, we didn't realize this was going to be that big of a case."

"Big" might be an understatement. Since the Arias trial began in January, it has dominated headlines and social-media sites, attracting followers from around the globe. The trial is expected to go to the jury this week.

Some curiosity seekers are showing up at the home to gawk and snap cellphone pictures. Motorists slow to a crawl as they drive past, as if wondering whether a house with a sunflower-splashed welcome sign and carefully tended flowers really was the scene of Alexander's bloody death.

"We get a lot of out-of-town or out-of-state license plates who kind of do those drive-bys of the house. That's creepy, and it honestly does worry me a little bit because they're staring at the house and not the road," said Amanda Klick, who has lived across the street from Alexander's former home for about eight years.

"I think people see the crime-scene photos and they think that's what it still looks like inside," said the homeowner, referring to pictures that show a pool of blood circling the shower drain and creeping down the side of the basin in the bathroom sink.

"A lot of people came by the house on their spring break - it was really bad with people showing up around that time," she said. "There was a lady who drove up from Casa Grande and said she wanted to talk to me so she could get 'closure.' "

Travis Pratt, a criminology and criminal-justice professor at Arizona State University, said it's increasingly common for people to feel personally invested in a case as social-media sites, such as Twitter, allow them to participate more actively in ongoing news-media coverage.

"People get a warped sense of privacy about what kinds of things they should or should not have access to," he said. "Once they have access to (something like the Alexander house address), the question of whether or not they should pursue - it doesn't seem to be one that's asked."

Pratt classified the constant drive-bys and prying visitors as a secondary layer of victimization in the case.

"The consequences of victimization are rarely confined to the (direct) victims themselves," he said. "I think, in the age of social media, those consequences reach into places where they really didn't reach before.

"While this is kind of a really high-profile instance of that happening, the same thing is happening in other forms all over the place."

Ralph Holmen, associate general counsel for the National Association of Realtors, said placing a dollar value on the hassle of dealing with those consequences can prove almost impossible, especially when it is not yet clear how long a crime or tragedy will attract attention.

Public records show that Alexander bought his home for about $250,000 in 2004 and that the current owners paid $206,000 for it in 2009.

"(That's) the challenge for everybody in the transaction, not just the broker but the buyer and seller," Holmen said. "It's really hard to capture in any meaningful way what it might mean. Some people might say, 'It doesn't bother me. If I can get this property at a rock-bottom price, that's great,' and some people might say, 'There's no amount of money in the world that I would buy it for.' "

Arizona law says sellers and brokers cannot be held liable for failing to disclose that a property has been "the site of a natural death, suicide or homicide or any other crime classified as a felony."

Real-estate agents often choose to disclose the information in their buyer-advisory packets anyway, according to Henstein.

Though there have been residences with a colorful history that took longer to sell or that did not sell for the asking price, Henstein said she doesn't remember "ever seeing a property that's been on the market for years because there was a murder in it."

When the owners of the Scottsdale condo where "Hogan's Heroes" star Bob Crane was bludgeoned to death in 1978 put the property on eBay in 2003, at least one bidder matched the $180,000 asking price - about $70,000 more than the market value for similar units in the complex at the time.

Public records do not show a sale for that amount, however, indicating that the house still may be owned by a relative of the couple who tried to sell it.

In January, the Gilbert house where Arizona vigilante J.T. Ready murdered his girlfriend and three other people before killing himself sold for $180,000, about $30,000 more than the amount online-valuation service Zillow said the house was worth at the time.

For curious visitors who show up to Alexander's former home expecting at least a trace of the morbid scene depicted in crime reports, the house's revamped, almost showroomlike interior would likely be jarring.

With Beatles memorabilia in the game room, a cozy sofa and TV in the living room and the boys' school pictures along the foyer wall, there's nothing to suggest the home was ever anything but a family's haven.

Nearly everything was refurbished or replaced after the slaying. Anything of Alexander's that was left behind was handed over to his relatives, with whom the new owners have maintained a friendly relationship.

"This house was not a house for just anyone to buy. It needed some TLC. It needed some work," the homeowner said. "We were willing to do that."

Neighbors have tried to protect the new residents from prying eyes.

Before Alexander was killed, they jokingly called the home he shared with friends the "frat house" - a setup that didn't necessarily mesh with the kid-centric street. After Alexander's slaying, they hoped a family would move in and "bring new life to the house."

"It's a beautiful home, and Travis really did a lot with it. It deserved to have life in it again," Klick said. "The evil is not in the house, it's with the person who committed this crime."

Neighbors call or text the homeowner when people show up in the driveway while she's out, giving her the option of taking her kids elsewhere until things settle down.

"The whole community has kept it as quiet as they can," she said.

Linda Bradley, who lives a few houses down, said neighbors "don't want those boys to be afraid to be in their home."

That protection has been extended to other children in the neighborhood, as well, many of whom have been told only there was a tragedy near where they live.

"All of us are sick of hearing about the bad things that happened, but it took that tragic event to make us more aware of what was going on in our neighborhood and try to get to know our neighbors better," Bradley said. "We all hang out now, and we're all good friends. We just watch out for each other."